“And as regards the glory of the God of Israel, it was taken up from over the cherubs over which it happened to be to the threshold of the house, and he began calling out to the man that was clothed with the linen, at whose hips there was the secretary’s inkhorn. And Jehovah went on to say to him: ‘Pass through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and you must put a mark on the foreheads of the men that are sighing and groaning over all the detestable things that are being done in the midst of it.”’​—Ezek. 9:3, 4.

So the ‘man in linen’ was evidently sent on a peaceful, lifesaving mission. Before giving the secretary his commission the Divine Presence moved from the celestial war chariot, described earlier in the vision, to the “threshold of the house,” evidently meaning the threshold of the Holy of Holies inside the temple itself. From here Jehovah issued his command to the ‘man in linen,’ equipped with pen and ink to do the marking work.

Who were to receive the mark distinguishing them from the rest of Jerusalem’s inhabitants? Those who were out of harmony with the idolatry, immorality and other disgusting things that were offending God, provoking him to anger. They were “sighing and groaning” because of the disrespect and insult toward righteousness and God’s name.

The symbolic ‘man in linen’ would have to go from house to house, to every home in the city of Jerusalem, to find all these deserving the mark. They needed to be marked, signifying that they were true worshipers of Jehovah.

Back there in Jerusalem no literal man went to all the houses making a literal mark on foreheads. It was a symbolic marking work. But according to divine promise and protection certain ones did escape execution, like Baruch the secretary of Jeremiah and Ebed-melech, the Rechabites, and undoubtedly some others. Symbolically God had them ‘marked’ as plainly as would be a literal mark on the forehead, so that the “six men,” his angelic forces, would discern the “mark” and not come near them.